Design Newshttps://amsso.designnews.com
Design Newshttps://amsso.designnews.com/sites/all/themes/designnews/images/rss_logo.pngServing the 21st Century Design Engineer29144Copyright 2019 UBM Americas, a UBM plc companySat, 25 May 2019 10:55:41 -0400https://amsso.designnews.com
enSat, 25 May 2019 10:55:41 -0400http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specificationThe Linux Steampunk Conference Badgehttps://amsso.designnews.com/gadget-freak/linux-steampunk-conference-badge/188204818057638
I prototype, write, speak, and consult on physical computing gadgets and wanted a one-off attention-grabbing conference badge that would break the conversational ice when I walked around trade shows. That quest started a few years ago, with the first generation Arduino Pro-Mini and a 1.8” color TFT screen conference badge.

The Gen-5 Steampunk Conference Personality Identification Apparatus.

The latest Generation 5.0 model uses a Raspberry Pi 3, a 480 x 320 color TFT touchscreen display, an ultrasonic sensor, a DS18B20 thermometer, a leather and brass-tubing framework, and an antique-looking 'Dr Torq' name plate. There's also an auxiliary Arduino Pro-Mini, to handle near-real time input/output jobs. The badge is Internet-enabled via WiFi and plays full-motion, promotional mp4 videos on the display. A USB 2400 mAh power bank supplies power for about four hours of show-floor attendee interaction. I can use the Chrome browser and LibreOffice on the display with a wireless Logitech keyboard or remotely log into the badge over SSH. Think of it as a full-function, Linux wearable.

Of course, encouraging audiences to build their own wearables and nano-Linux physical computing devices is also part of my schtick, as is soft-selling my consulting expertise. Making it fun, through over-the-top exaggeration and the Steampunk theme helps accomplish those things. While they may not be able to always define it, everybody recognizes and enjoys the Steampunk aesthetic.

Let's look at the Gen-5 badge in more detail.

Raspberry Pi 3

I chose the Raspberry Pi 3 model B because it's a powerful Linux-based nano-computer, featuring a quad-core Broadcom BCM2837 64-bit ARMv8 processor, with 1 GB of RAM and onboard Bluetooth and WiFi. A customized version of Raspbian Linux, burned onto the micro-SD card, made using the 320x480 TFT color touchscreen display a plug-and-play operation.

Touchscreen

The touchscreen is a PiTFT Plus 480 x 320 3.5" TFT+Touchscreen plate for Raspberry Pi. It normally plugs directly into the Pi using the 2 x 20 header. Doing it that way made the badge too thick, so I built a cable to mount the screen above the Pi. The display is also upside down, with the connector at the top because it was easy to keep the wiring straight. I corrected the display orientation with a parameter change at boot up. Touchscreen operation is still upside down, so I may turn the display right-side-up and reconfigure the cable, in the future.

Let's next look at the parts list, before continuing on with other details of the badge.

Here's the Fritzing layout of the electrical components. I wasn't able to find a library part file for the 3.5" 480 x 320 PiTFT module, so I simply broke out the cable connections, from the Raspberry Pi to the display with labels.

Pi-to-TFT Screen Cable

The Pi-to-TFT screen cable was fabbed-up by salvaging a 2 x 20 connector from an old IDE hard-drive cable. Take the cable retainer clip off the back and peel away the ribbon cable, being careful not to pull the pins out of the connector. You can then solder solid core 22-gauge wire to the connector pins and route the wires to male push pins that plug into the display's 2 x 20 header. I think the exposed soldered connector, on the front of the Pi, enhances the “engineering” look of the badge.

An auxiliary Arduino Pro-Mini (5V,16 MHz model), connects serially to the Pi through a level-shifter board, to get near-real time readings from the ultrasonic range finder. There's also analog input pins available for as-yet undefined new badge features. The rangefinder will eventually pulse an tri-color LED, in response to how close a person gets to the front of the badge.

Badge Reverse Side - Arduino Pro-Mini And Level Shifter Board At Lower Left

It made sense to connect the Dallas One-Wire DS18B20 thermometer to a Pi digital pin, instead of the Arduino. The DS18B20 requires about 750 ms to take a temperature reading and makes accurate distance measurements with the rangefinder (connected to the Arduino) impossible. The code would have to wait for a temperature, then echo/read the rangefinder, during each program loop. Reading an ambient temperature about once a second is fine using a Python script on the Pi.

Some 3/16” thin-wall brass tubing, from a local hobby story, was used to build the frame. Lengths were cut with a standard plumber's copper pipe cutter, available at any home improvement store. Soldering the parts were a challenge. I used “3rd-arm” jigs, alligator clips, wire, tape, and, occasionally, hot glue to hold the parts in alignment while soldering. For thumbscrew attachments points I simply screwed the 1/4” long sections of tubing vertically to a piece of wood, placing them in the desired locations around the frame. Square frame sections were aligned with weights and binder clips, during soldering. Brackets for attaching the auxiliary Arduino, rangefinder, Raspberry Pi, and PiTFT display to the frame were made from 1/4” x 1/16” brass flat stock. Ten-gauge solid copper wire was bent and soldered to the top of the frame for lanyard attachment points.

Brass Tubing Frame And Lanyard Hook Details

An old tried-and-true Weller 100/140 watt soldering gun and 1/16” rosin-cored solder handled constructing the frame without any issues. Fine adjustments in tubing length and corner rounding of the flat-stock brackets is easy with a small abrasive drum, in a Dremel tool. You can also use a medium grit sanding sponge, to knock off sharp edges and smooth out solder joints.

I like the hand-crafted, antique Steampunk look of the brass frame and thumbscrews. You have to be able to take the leather backing off of the frame for modifications and the thumbscrews make that very easy.

Antique Name Plate

A Steampunk conference badge certainly needs a cool looking name plate. After considerable searching I found an appropriate Victorian font and printed the 'Dr Torq' characters on standard laser printer paper. Next, I carefully ripped the paper to the appropriate size and soaked it in a mild instant iced-tea solution for a few minutes. The antique look came from wadding up the paper while wet and then flattening it out on a paper towel and drying it with an electric hair drier. I then used clear nail polish to glue the paper to the small leather name plate. After the “glue” dried, I painted the front of the stained paper with a coat of nail polish to give it a slight sheen. Don't worry about the paper tearing, here and there, because that only enhances the old-timey look of the badge. The leather and paper name plate was then hot-glued to the leather badge backing. I thought the aged effect turned out very well.

Dr. Torq Name Plate Detail

Wrap Up

The badge was a huge hit at a recent conference in Santa Clara, CA. I'd like to use photocells for input, instead of push-buttons, so that might be a possible new feature. It would also be cool to wear the badge around the conference show floor, then simply plug it into a projector to give one of my tech talks. Switching between the 3.5” TFT and the HDMI video output, isn't quite there yet.

I'm happy with the Gen-5 badge and not sure when Dr Torq will be motivated to go to version 6.0. He's a bit eccentric, you know.

Dr. Torq (aka: Rob Reilly)explains the latest, bleeding-edge technology and trends to audiences worldwide, through his widely published articles and in-person tech talks. The trademark Steampunk-themed gadgets, he builds, are insanely popular online, at conferences and at tech events. Visit his website at DrTorq.com. Always interested in new clients, you can contact him via email at doc@drtorq.com.

]]>Gadget FreakElectronics & Testsite:Design News,nid:57638Thu, 12 Oct 2017 03:44:06 -0400Rob ReillyDesign Newsenhttps://amsso.designnews.com/gadget-freak/linux-steampunk-conference-badge/188204818057638Hardware IoT Development as Simple as Drag and Drophttps://amsso.designnews.com/iot/hardware-iot-development-simple-drag-and-drop/165472481057633
Earlier this year Google held its IO 2017 conference where the latest in Android and Artificial Intelligence tools where presented through demonstrations to attending developers.

Some of the software tools discussed at the event were Tensorflow, Kotlin, and Android Things platform using Android Studio. The Android Things session presented new coding features of Android Studio that allow hardware developers to build IoT devices.

At first glance, high level coding may sway novice IoT developers because of the steep learning curve in using traditional programming languages such as XML, Javascript, and C++ used to build wireless devices. Cayenne has removed this coding roadblock by creating an online and mobile development platform where IoT applications can be built by dragging and dropping device widgets onto a dashboard.

To gain access to the online IoT development tools requires a simple registration. Once registered, you have the complete online IoT development tools suite at your disposal. The mydevices Cayenne website provides an introduction video which shows the key features of the mydevices IoT platform and how to setup the hardware and download the programming tools to your microcontroller development platform. The Raspberry Pi, and Arduino microcontroller-based platforms, along with the LoRa devices, are compatible with the mydevices IoT development tool suite.

The mydevices Cayenne IoT development platform works with the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and LoRa programmable devices. (Source: Cayenne)

Once the device is selected, the programming tools to connect with the mydevices Project Screen will need to be installed. There is a procedural guide that will assist in installing these tools onto the selected device. For the Raspberry Pi, the tools can be installed by a communications terminal using SSH (Secure Shell), or using the Cayenne Mobile app. The installation process can take up to 10 minutes.

The programming tools for a Raspberry Pi can be installed using a communications terminal using SSH (Secure Shell) or using Cayenne Mobile app for iOS and Android devices. (Source: Cayenne)

After the tools have been installed, an online dashboard will appear on the desktop PC or notebook computer’s screen.

The Cayenne dashboard will display on the screen after a successful programming tools installation to the Raspberry Pi. CPU performance and RAM usage of the wirelessly connected Raspberry Pi are immediately displayed on the dashboard. (Source: Cayenne)

Developing the IoT Application

Building the IoT application is as simple as dragging and dropping a device widget onto a dashboard. To expedite the IoT build, Cayenne provides a variety of widgets. Also, project templates for actuator, sensor devices are provided to help assist in building IoT concepts quickly. In addition, the look and functionality of the actuator or sensor can be changed by selecting from a list of event and visual attributes.

An example of sensors that can be used with the Raspberry Pi and mydevices IoT platform. (Source: Cayenne)

Hands-On Experience

To test Cayenne’s drag-and-drop method of building IoT applications, I built a simple wireless LED Light switch using the mydevices actuator widget. The software tools were installed on my Raspberry Pi 3 by SSH and the Tera-Term communication terminal. Once installed, I selected the simple LED light template for mydevices IoT project. I built the LED circuit using an Adafruit T-Cobbler breakout board and a solderless breadboard. I selected a pushbutton to activate the LED and placed it on my project dashboard. Also, I added a LED icon to the pushbutton to reflect the IoT project’s control function.

A simple LED – IoT controller built with a mydevices pushbutton for the Raspberry Pi. (Source: Cayenne)

Toggling the pushbutton on the dashboard with the mouse turns on and off the wired LED circuit on the solderless breadboard. The total development time of this project was 30 minutes.

LED circuit wired to a Raspberry Pi using an Adafruit T-Cobbler breakout board. (Source: Don Wilcher)

LED turned on using the mydevices digital pushbutton on the project dashboard. (Source: Don Wilcher)

I plan to further explore technology areas in robotics, industrial, and home automation controls using this simple drag-and-drop IoT platform development tool. Additional technical information and resources may be found on Cayenne’s website.

Don Wilcher is a passionate teacher of electronics technology and an electrical engineer with 26 years of industrial experience. He’s worked on industrial robotics systems, automotive electronic modules/systems, and embedded wireless controls for small consumer appliances. He’s also a book author, writing DIY project books on electronics and robotics technologies. Besides being an Electrical Engineer, he’s a Certified Electronics Technician with ETA International and Alabama State Certified Electronics Instructor.

Measuring Battery Life in IoT Devices. Many devices used in IoT applications must run on battery power for extended periods of time, and with an increasing number of apps constantly running on smartphones, there is a risk that not enough battery power is left for voice calls. Join two top application engineers from Rohde & Schwarz, as they discuss battery life in IoT devices at ESC Minneapolis, Nov. 8-9, 2017. Use the code SAVE15ESCMINN to save 15% when you register today!

]]>IoTDesign Hardware & Softwaresite:Design News,nid:57633Thu, 12 Oct 2017 03:01:00 -0400Don WilcherDesign Newsenhttps://amsso.designnews.com/iot/hardware-iot-development-simple-drag-and-drop/165472481057633Will World War III be fought in the cyber world?https://amsso.designnews.com/cyber-security/will-world-war-iii-be-fought-cyber-world/187678036757628
Hacking has become a full-time career option, a weapon of mass disruption and a way of compromising privacy on a global scale. The billions of connected devices being bought by businesses and consumers every year is expanding the attack surface at a rapid rate. So, are individuals and industry dealing with the challenge of protecting their devices from cradle to grave? If not, what needs to change and how quickly? Do we now need a more human-centered approach to how we design and engage with technology that reduces our vulnerability to threats and makes us more empowered?

Cyber-psychologist Mary Aiken will address such questions as a panelist keynoter at ARM TechCon in Santa Clara, Calif., this month. Specifically, she will answers questions about the role of psychology in fighting cyber threats during the presentation, “Avoiding a Hacker’s Paradise,” on Oct. 25, 2017 at 9:50 am.

Ahead of her talk, we asked Dr. Aiken about her work in cyber-psychology and how cyber dangers have changed in recent years.

Design News: Could you describe what it means to be a cyber-psychologist?

Aiken: Cyberpsychology is the study of the impact of technology on humankind. This involves everything from virtual environments to Internet psychology. My specialist area is Forensic Cyberpsychology, which focuses on abnormal and criminal behavior online. Cyberpsychology has been described as the “new psychology” and as a discipline is expected to enjoy exponential growth due to continued rapid acceleration of Internet technologies, and the unprecedentedly pervasive and profound influence of digital connectivity on human beings.

Design News: I’ve noticed your study of technology has moved from “humans interacting with technology” to cybercrime and cyberstalking. Has this been prompted by a growth in the nefarious use of technology?

Aiken: Many years ago, in one of my first lectures in Forensic Psychology the lecturer opened the lecture with “if you want to live a long and healthy life - then you should change your next of kin frequently”. He was referring to incidences of domestic homicide, where the death of a person has resulted from violence, abuse, or neglect by a person they are related to or have been in an intimate relationship with. The lecture was inspirational and I became fascinated by forensic science.

Many years later I studied cyberpsychology and published papers on cyber babies; the impact of technology on the developing infant, and cyberchondria; that is, anxiety induced by escalation during online health-related search to review morbid or serious content. I became increasingly intrigued by how human behavior could mutate and become amplified and accelerated online, specifically criminal and malicious behaviour. This led me to focus on research in the areas of organized cybercrime, youth hacking, cyber behavioural profiling, and human factors in cybersecurity. It also led to my position as an academic advisor to Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre.

Design News: In the time you studied cybersecurity, have you seen a change in the type of people engaging in cybercrime?

Aiken: The one phenomenon that is most alarming is the increase in the number of young people engaging in cybercriminal activity – everything from hacking to cyber fraud. The Australian Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research recently reported a surge in cyber fraud offences committed by people under 18 years.

In a recent survey, roughly one in six teenagers in the US, and one in four teenagers in the UK, reported that they had tried some form of Internet hacking. Law enforcement have noted that young people, particularly IT literate boys, are increasingly committing cybercrime offences ranging from money laundering for criminal gangs, to hacking, to use of remote access trojans (RATs) – that is, malware that can log keystrokes, lift passwords, encrypt files and hold them for ransom, and is used for everything from blackmail to financial fraud.

Design News: Have you also seen a change in the way people and organizations are protecting themselves from cybercrime?

Aiken: Recent reports have highlighted the vulnerability of insecure Internet of Things (IoT) devices. In 2016 we had the first massive attack originating from connected devices, as the Mirai malware transformed around 150 000 routers and CCTV cameras into a DDoS botnet. This botnet was involved in several attacks, including one targeting internet infrastructure on the West Coast of the United States.

The sheer volume, velocity and variety of cyber-criminal activity online from large-scale data breaches to ransomware attacks means that increasingly organizations will need to deploy artificial intelligence solutions in order to protect themselves.

Design News: Do you see developments in cybersecurity sufficient to keep up with advances in cyber-attacks?

Aiken: There has been some interesting work undertaken in terms of comparing how the human immune system operates, and how a defensive network policing the Internet of Things might operate. A technological immune system would aim to detect illness in edge devices through sensors. The system would have the ability to quarantine unhealthy devices and deliver automatic treatment.

Design News: Should governments get more involved in cyber protection of its citizens and organization?

Aiken: Government does have a role to play in terms of determining policy regarding cyber security – individual organizations and enterprises are at present responsible for their own security - when it comes to citizens I believe that cyber security starts at home.

Design News: Will World War III be fought in the cyber world?

Aiken: First of all, I hope that we never have a World War III. However, war in cyber contexts is a distinct possibility, if not probability. Just last year NATO declared cyberspace as a "domain of operations," acknowledging that the wars of the future will be fought on land, sea, air, and on computer networks.

Rob Spiegel has covered automation and control for 17 years, 15 of them for Design News. Other topics he has covered include supply chain technology, alternative energy, and cyber security. For 10 years, he was owner and publisher of the food magazine Chile Pepper.

Image courtesy of European Cybercrime Centre.

]]>ARM TechCon - Santa ClaraCyber SecurityIoTsite:Design News,nid:57628Wed, 11 Oct 2017 04:50:48 -0400Rob SpiegelDesign Newsenhttps://amsso.designnews.com/cyber-security/will-world-war-iii-be-fought-cyber-world/187678036757628What to Consider When Starting a Services Companyhttps://amsso.designnews.com/electronics-test/what-consider-when-starting-services-company/180827161957632
It has nearly been 10 years since my business partner and I decided to start our product development professional services firm. By all measures, Intelligent Product Solutions Inc. (IPS) has succeeded well beyond our initial vision. With this milestone approaching, it is worth recounting how and why we came to start IPS and some of the important “lessons learned” along the way.

How did we get here?

For most start-up and small business owners, there comes a moment of truth when the decision is made to start up. In many cases, a seminal event triggers the process. For me, the ball started rolling when I was released from my executive position at a large tech company. I had been there for more than 13 years culminating a product development career of nearly 30 years in the corporate world. There were a few things I knew. First, I no longer wanted to be directly employed in the corporate world, especially as an executive. Second, I needed time to soul search what I really wanted to do. After a few months, I decided to dabble in the consulting world using my dusty, but still intact, engineering skills at a small design consulting firm.

That experience led me to two insights. First, I found that I enjoyed being close to the technical work again. Second, I found that I had the ability to find, land, and satisfy new clients. After about two-and-a-half years of consulting through others, my business partner and I realized we could do this independently and left to start our firm, IPS. We also realized that, while risky, the client relationships we’d built and our former engineering team members would very likely join us if we struck out on our own. And so at the end of 2007, we did.

Why are we here?

Every startup may have a different motivation for striking out on their own. Certainly, there are those who start companies purely with the goal of getting rich. We see such founders every week here at IPS. For the majority, however, the focus is not on how wealthy they will be but rather, they have an underlying passion for what they are planning to do. For my partner and me, we really enjoyed the consulting world. The variety of projects, skills and relationships were exciting and motivating. We knew there was a market for the type of full service product development capabilities we could build and offer.

Furthermore, we knew there were gaps in the marketplace where we could thrive. This is crucial – it is not just a matter of can something be done. Where is the uniqueness? In product companies, this could be unique domain knowledge or better yet, strong and defensible intellectual property. In a services industry, there has to be a clear niche that is unserved or under-served. Hopefully, in either a product or services play, it helps if you have the knowledge, know-how or ability to do something that is very difficult to replicate and, as importantly, of high, compelling value to potential clients. In the case, of IPS, we knew it was hard to build as diverse and highly experienced a team as we ended up building and we knew (from my days of using professional services firms) there was a dearth of options with the full suite of competencies of IPS. I also knew that “If we build it, they will come” was a true possibility.

When starting any company, founders need to do a risk/reward analysis. While this need not be highly formalized, it is necessary. We understood the risk (i.e. my partner and I along with “family and friends network” could lose money) but considered the risk to be moderate. We knew the clients who would help us kickstart the company (to our friends out there, you know who you are and THANKS!). We also knew that we had the relationships we needed to rapidly build the depth and diversity of the team (in a services company, the team staff-hours are the “product”). We further realized that, while not a path to fame and vast riches, we could generate a return on our investment, make a good living and, as importantly for us, have all kinds of interesting, satisfying work. Lastly, for good, bad or other, we don’t have any other bosses to whom we need to report or satisfy (other than our clients, of course!).

What have we learned?

There are many lessons learned, and we continue to learn every day. Here are a few:

1. It takes a lot more capital than you think. Anyone who thinks they don’t need a lot of ready cash behind their business is sadly mistaken

2. Related to #1, it takes a lot longer to get paid than you can imagine. You want those nice, big Tier #1 clients? Great. So does everyone else. Realize that payment terms can be 60 days or longer (sometimes much longer). In a services business, it means you pay a staff member this week and you might invoice two weeks later. Then it takes two weeks for the manager at your client to approve payment. Then you wait 60 days for the client to pay (who sometimes will only start the payment process in 60 days). Then, be prepared to wait several days for the check to clear. Engineers and other skilled workers are expensive. Better have a lot of money in the bank or a hefty line of credit behind you.

3. Not all clients are ethical. In 30+ years working inside big companies, with very rare exceptions, if a vendor did the work, they will eventually get paid. However, there are a lot of unethical small/mid-size businesses out there who, as a matter of practice, will try to stiff their vendors/suppliers out of payment. Be prepared to spend a lot more time with attorneys than you might have imagined.

4. Landing new clients takes a lot more time than you think. Furthermore, the bigger they are, the longer it takes. We recently did work for awell-known cellular service company. We spent almost two years trying to land this client and get on their “approved vendor list.” (I am still not sure it was worth our time investment, by the way.)

5. You need a strong internal team to whom you can delegate responsibility -- and you have to be willing to delegate. I can’t stress this enough. You will fail if you do not have a very capable team with the various skills needed to build and run your company. I am fortunate in having a great business partner with whom I have a very natural division of labor. Without a great partner (or partners), I can tell you that it will get very lonely at the top. We also have a powerful team in all the functional areas of the company including finance and legal. We delegate responsibility and authority and hold people accountable. If you bring in a team you that you cannot trust to take charge, and can’t empower them to do so, you have the wrong team.

6. Whether you are selling shoes or you are selling high end services, realize you are selling to people. You have to be open, honest and engaging. Even in the era of social media, rampant electronic messaging and online shopping, when it comes to services, people buy from people. Your customers always have options. If you are going to grow your business your customers have to want to work with you.

That’s it in a nutshell. Starting a new business is not for the faint of heart. You need courage and stamina, and for most of us, it is a marathon and not a sprint. You also need a lot of self-confidence and a winning business model. You must be “all in.” That is, be prepared to do anything and everything to make your business a success.

Mitch is the President and Cofounder of Intelligent Product Solutions (IPS). He honed his deep knowledge of product design on the strength of a 30-year career with companies that manufacture commercially successful products for the consumer, industrial, and DoD markets. Prior to launching IPS, Mitch was VP of Engineering at Symbol Technologies. He holds numerous US and international patents, as well a Bachelor of Science degree from Hofstra University, a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University, and an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He can be reached at mitchm@ips-yes.com.

How to Start and Grow a Start-up Panel & Networking Session

You're smart. You have ideas. You want to start and grow your own company. But you also have to pay the bills. In this open-to-all session at Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) Silicon Valley, Dec. 5-7, 2017, we'll hear from a panel of engineers who became successful entrepreneurs on the pros and cons of going out on your own, what they did and wished they didn't do, and how they started their start-ups on the path toward significant companies. This session will conclude with a Q&A and networking opportunity.

]]>Embedded Systems Conference - San JoseElectronics & TestBusinesssite:Design News,nid:57632Wed, 11 Oct 2017 03:31:30 -0400Mitch MaimanDesign Newsenhttps://amsso.designnews.com/electronics-test/what-consider-when-starting-services-company/180827161957632Eek! DNA-Born Malware at ESC Minneapolis 2017https://amsso.designnews.com/content/eek-dna-born-malware-esc-minneapolis-2017/77918810257626
As I've said on several occasions, things are beginning to move very, very quickly in Embedded Space (where no one can hear you scream).

Just a couple of years ago, things like machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) were topics that were primarily of academic interest only. Now these technologies are being deployed in all sorts of real-world embedded systems, and we're only just scratching the surface of what's possible.

Day-by-day, I see more and more weird and wonderful items of techno-weenie news crossing my desk, such as a system with the ability to listen to a group of people talking -- along with noise sources like air conditioners and television news programs playing in the background -- analyze the entire sound space, disassemble it into the individual elements, and then isolate all of the elements and listen to them in real-time, including tracking the locations of individual speakers as they more around the room.

Or how about a start-up company deep-learning/neural-network-based systems can analyze as little as a minute of someone speaking and use this to generate a unique key. This key can subsequently be used to generate any speech, mimicking its corresponding voice, augmented with any desired emotion.

The thing is that, although some of this stuff is exciting, a lot of it is starting to get somewhat scary. Consider, for example, the AI system at Facebook that invented its own language. It has been reported that researchers pulled the plug when they realized they didn’t understand what the AI agents were saying to each other.

Or how about the fact that researchers at the University of Washington have demonstrated that biohackers, using widely available tools, could embed malware in synthesized strands of deoxyribonucleic acid that would allow them to take over the computer analyzing the DNA.

So where should you go to learn about all the things you can look forward to, and all the things you have to start worrying about? Well, a good place to start is the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC), November 8-9, in Minneapolis.

In particular, you should attend my talk on Advanced Technologies for 21st Century Embedded Systems, in which we will delve into cognitive (thinking / reasoning) embedded systems, artificial neural networks, deep learning, machine vision, virtual and augmented realities, and how all these technologies are coming together.

Happily, this talk will be in the ESC Engineering Theater, which means anyone can attend so long as they are flaunting a Free Expo Pass, but you do have to register. Hopefully I'll see you there. I'll be the one in the Hawaiian shirt.

]]>Embedded Systems Conference - MinneapolisIoTElectronics & Testsite:Design News,nid:57626Wed, 11 Oct 2017 03:01:35 -0400Max MaxfieldDesign Newsenhttps://amsso.designnews.com/content/eek-dna-born-malware-esc-minneapolis-2017/77918810257626Will an Act of Congress Elevate Cybersecurity?https://amsso.designnews.com/cyber-security/will-act-congress-elevate-cybersecurity/41073871557599
Lawmakers in the US Senate have introduced a bill that would set baseline security standards for government-purchased connected devices, from computers and routers to security cameras and other IoT devices. The IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017 comes in direct response to the constant stream of cyber-attacks amid a burgeoning market of connected devices.

The bill seeks to use the government’s buying power to set a basic level of security for IoT devices bought by the government. The bill would require vendors of connected devices to make sure their products can be patched when security updates are available; that the devices do not use hard-coded (unchangeable) passwords; and that they ensure their devices are free from known vulnerabilities when sold.

A Bipartisan Effort

Given that the bill is bipartisan – introduced by two Democrat senators and two Republican senators – there is a decent chance it will survive congress. The fact that President Trump signed an executive order on cybersecurity in May, indicates he may be in favor of taking this action on cybersecurity. Then again, he’s been open about the fact that he's not big on adding regulations to business.

Earlier this year, we heard musings about the Cyber Shield Act of 2017. It was introduced in the house and hearings were held in April. The idea was for manufacturers to display Cyber Shield labels on their connected devices to indicate the product meets government standards for cybersecurity. The act has not yet passed either house of Congress.

IoT Producers May Comply As Good Business Practice

Many IoT players are simply not worried about the government market, especially if their products are aimed at consumers or industrial customers. “The big question is whether IoT producers will be considerate of customers that might be re-selling their devices to the government. Even those producing consumer devices such as smart metering will likely have to deal with this. That includes state utilities and power companies,” Jake Sprouse, director of software engineering at the technology product design firm Synapse, told Design News. “Whether you’re affected will depend on who you are and what industries you play in. If you have government involvement, they’re going to be concerned about mitigating cybersecurity risk up front.”

Device makers will have to consider to requirements of this law even if the product is not affected by the legislation. “This new law will probably cause a broad swath of devices makers to take security more seriously. Even if you’re a company making a connected toaster, you need to take care of these issues to stop bad things from happening downstream,” said Sprouse. “The important thing is to protect the brand by making sure you customers will not be affected by security.”

Security Affects Time-to-Market and Usability

The push to get new products out the door has sidelined cybersecurity somewhat, often making it an afterthought attached to an already-designed device. “This law would move the design trade-off decisions to an earlier point in the design process,” said Sprouse. “Before, device manufacturers put off the decisions or swept them under the rug. Now, they will need to consider how security will affect cost and user experience, as well as time to market.”

With more security regulatory considerations, you lengthen the quality assurance cycle at the start and the end of the design process. Security requirements also affect the usability of the device. “If you have to get a password for a device and get it connected to your WiFi, it can have a huge impact on how much interaction the user needs with the device,” said Sprouse.

Rob Spiegel has covered automation and control for 17 years, 15 of them for Design News. Other topics he has covered include supply chain technology, alternative energy, and cyber security. For 10 years, he was owner and publisher of the food magazine Chile Pepper.

Image courtesy of US Congress.

]]>Cyber SecurityIoTsite:Design News,nid:57599Tue, 10 Oct 2017 04:18:35 -0400Rob SpiegelDesign Newsenhttps://amsso.designnews.com/cyber-security/will-act-congress-elevate-cybersecurity/410738715575992018 BMWs Will Bring Amazon Alexa on the Roadhttps://amsso.designnews.com/automotive-0/2018-bmws-will-bring-amazon-alexa-on-road/83757641657583
In 2016 BMW introduced BMW Connected into its vehicles, allowing for Amazon Alexa users to control their vehicle's climate control, lock and unlock doors, and even check fuel status from home. Now, Amazon has announced that beginning in mid-2018 owners of select BMW and MINI vehicles will have access to full Alexa functions in their vehicles.

With Alexa integrated directly into vehicles, BMWs will have access to the same functionalities as devices like the Amazon Echo (shown). (Image source: Amazon).

Beyond the standard connected vehicle bells and whistles such as directions, phone calls, music, weather, news, and smart home control, Alexa will offer about 25,000 “skills” available from third parties like Starbucks. Alexa will provide voice responses along with visual cards on the vehicles' control display.

Many of Alexa's skills such as accessing workouts and interfacing with wearables, movies, and video games are more home-centric applications probably best left out of a moving vehicle. However who's to say a busy driver stuck in gridlock won't find it useful to be able to make voice-enabled purchases in their car? Imagine, for example, being able to order a cup of coffee while you're driving and have it ready by the time you arrive at your local Starbucks. Amazon also offers an SDK for developers looking to create Alexa skills so as the technology proliferates we may be seeing companies creating skills uniquely for drivers.

This latest development from Amazon looks to be an attempt to leapfrog competitors such as Apple and Google who have established themselves with CarPlay and Android Auto for allowing users to connect their smartphones to their car. Right now, even if your car doesn't allow for one of those features, you're likely to use Siri or Google Assistant already built into your smartphone for things like driving directions. And while more enterprising consumers could, in theory, use an Amazon Echo inside their car, the scenario isn't likely.

Without a smartphone of its own and most customers unlikely to purchase an additional device for their cars, Amazon will have to go for direct integration if it wants Alexa on the roads. That isn't to say however that Amazon's competition isn't doing the same thing. Earlier this year at its Google I/O developer conference Google detailed partnerships with Audi and Volvo to fully integrate the Android operating system into both companies' vehicles as soon as 2018.

Though no official announcements have been made, an Amazon spokesperson said several other automakers including Volkswagen, SEAT, and Ford have also formally announced they are bringing Alexa into their vehicles, as well.

ESC Silicon Valley is Back! The Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) is back in Silicon Valley and it’s bigger than ever. Over three days, Dec. 5-7, 2017, receive in-depth education geared to drive a year’s worth of work. Uncover software design innovation, hardware breakthroughs, fresh IoT trends, product demos, and more that will change how you spend time and money on your next project. Click here to register today!

Senior technical editor Chuck Murray has been writing about technology for 33 years. He joined Design News in 1987, and has covered electronics, automation, fluid power, and auto.

]]>ARM TechCon - Santa ClaraConsumer ElectronicsConsumer Electronicssite:Design News,nid:57553Fri, 06 Oct 2017 06:15:00 -0400Charles MurrayDesign Newsenhttps://amsso.designnews.com/consumer-electronics/12-people-who-engineered-change-without-college-degreeLinux Now Has its First Open Source RISC-V Processorhttps://amsso.designnews.com/content/linux-now-has-its-first-open-source-risc-v-processor/71646867257598
SiFive has declared that 2018 will be the year of RISC V Linux processors.

When it released its first open-source system on a chip, the Freeform Everywhere 310, last year, Silicon Valley startup SiFive was aiming to push the RISC-V (“risk five”) architecture to transform the hardware industry in the way that Linux transformed the software industry. Now the company has delivered further on that promise with the release of the U54-MC Coreplex, the first RISC-V-based chip that supports Linux, Unix, and FreeBSD.

A block diagram of SiFive's U54-MC Coreplex. (Image sourse: SiFive)

“It's been easy for critics to dismiss RISC-V because it's only been in embedded systems thus far,” Jack Kang, VP of Product and Business Development at SiFive, told Design News. “But now we've taken RISC-V commercially beyond embedded into Linux processing applications.” This latest development has RISC-V enthusiasts particularly excited because now it opens up a whole new world of use cases for the architecture and paves the way for RISC-V processors to compete with ARM cores and similar offerings in the enterprise and consumer space, overcoming what Kang said is was a big criticism as far as the quality of the RISC-V architecture. Now applications such as AI and machine learning and IoT devices can be developed using open-source chip hardware.

In its standard configuration, before any third-party modifications or overclocking, the 64-bit, multi-core U45-MC Coreplex has four U54 CPUs and a single E51 CPU, each running at 1.5 GHz. SiFive said costumers can order the U45-MC in a variety of configurations besides the default. The U54 cores supports the RV64GC ISA, which RISC-V developers expect to become the standard ISA for Linux-based RISC-V devices.

“The U54 Coreplexes are great for companies looking to build SoC's around RISC-V,” Andrew Waterman co-founder and chief engineer at SiFive, as well as the one of the co-creators of RISC-V, told Design News. “The forthcoming silicon is going to enable much better software development for RISC-V.”

Waterman said that, while SiFive had developed low-level software such as compilers for RISC-V the company really hopes that the open-source community will be taking a much broader roll going forward and really pushing the technology forward. No matter how big of a role we would want to have we can't make a dent,” Waterman said. “But what we can do is make sure the army of engineers out there are empowered.”

The next immediate question then becomes: What will be the killer app for RISC-V, product or service that finally breaks RISC-V out into the wider landscape? Rick O’Connor, Executive Director of the RISC-V Foundation, told Design News that it won't be that straightforward however. “People always want to know what's the killer app for RISC-V,” he said. “It's a romantic idea, but [RISC-V] is a very real architecture designed from a modular perspective. But it's not a simply an alternative ISA. There is no killer app sweet spot because you can tailor it.”

From his position in the RISC-V Foundation, O'Connor has a broad insight into the RISC-V ecosystem. The Foundation includes a number of startups and mid-level companies in its membership, but also boasts big names such as Google, IBM, as well as chipmakers like Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm. Last year, Nvidia, for example, announced that that next generation of its Falcon microcontrollers for its GPUs will be built using RISC-V. In a talk released by the RISC-V Foundation, Nvidia cited configurable cache as well as the need to increase performance of Falcon for emerging use cases such as automotive and security as being behind its decision to embrace the architecture.

“It brings a new level of innovation into developing your own purpose built machine because the ISA is open for anyone to use so the barrier to entry is very low,” O'Connor said“In the near future I think we're going to see RISC-V make more of a push into general computing devices and then cloud-based accelerator applications. [The Foundation] really sees it as an architecture that really has an opportunity to be an ISA for all.”

]]>Embedded Systems Conference - San JoseIoTConsumer ElectronicsElectronics & TestDesign Hardware & Softwaresite:Design News,nid:57598Fri, 06 Oct 2017 04:23:17 -0400Chris WiltzDesign Newsenhttps://amsso.designnews.com/content/linux-now-has-its-first-open-source-risc-v-processor/71646867257598The Trend Toward Distributed Roboticshttps://amsso.designnews.com/content/trend-toward-distributed-robotics/122446416957582
With all of the discussion happening around collaborative robots (cobots) there is, of course, a lot of talk of how these robots will interact (and possibly replace) humans in the workspace. One less discussed aspect is how these robots will collaborate with each other. But if smart factories continue to bring in cobots and the robots themselves take on increasingly more complex tasks, centralized systems will become increasingly inefficient and distributed robotics will become more critical.

“In the last 15 or so years one of the big trends in AI has been the move toward distributed AI or multi-agent systems,” Maria Gini, distinguished professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, told Design News. “These are systems in which instead of just one entity that is intelligent and makes decisions you think about multiple entities, – such as robots and programs – that somehow have a task to do and accomplish it by some form of collaboration and communication.”

Maria Gini, renowned AI and robotics expert and upcoming ESC keynote speaker. (Image source: University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering)

Gini, a keynote speaker at the upcoming 2017 Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in Minneapolis, has spent the bulk of her 30 years as an artificial intelligence and robotics researcher working in the field of distributed robotics. “I really focus more and more on how to build communities and teams of robots and on the competitive – the game theory aspects – of how they can work together.”

For Gini, the greatest advantage distributed systems offer is robustness. “If I've built my [distributed] system properly, if one robot breaks other robots can still do the work. Whereas if I have a central system then if one robot breaks maybe the system doesn't know and if it does know it has to reallocate everything. Centralized systems produce better quality solutions, but they aren't as robust to failures. A distrubuted system is more resilient.”

What makes distributed robotics particularly challenging from an AI perspective, according to Gini, is that engineers have to think of all the different ways that robots could interact and react to each other. More than simply handing off tasks from one robot to another like an assembly line, distributed robots may be called upon to course correct errors, pick up slack workloads for each other, and even figure out how to most quickly and efficiently accomplish a task.

“Imagine I have to clean a building and I have a team of people to do it with,” Gini said. “[With humans] I could say to each of them, 'Run wherever you want and pick up garbage' and after some random amount of time the building will be clean. It works, but there's no communication.” Gini said a lot of robotics is approached this same way, with each robot working independently and never taking advantage of the possibility of communication.

But with that communication comes a lot of questions in regards to process and implementation. Should all of the robots in a space be communicating all of the time? What should happen if a robot fails? We expect extra collaboration to make jobs faster and to save energy, but if done badly it could have just the opposite effect.

“If I want to collaborate with robots the question then becomes how do I do it and one of the main issues is communications,” Gini said. “Do have communication with one robot? All the other robots? Just some? Do I have a central controller that tells teach robot what to do and allocates space to each robot? I could make a local system or a global system or I can have a system where the team self-organizes. All of these methods are different in real life and when you want to write programs.”

One method of addressing this, Gini said, is with the use of an auction system, wherein robots “bid” on tasks (based on how quickly they can accomplish it, for example) and the machine that is best able to accomplish it is assigned the task. “Once I know what all the tasks are I can assign them a value and say something like, 'This task is going to cost me five or 15 or whatever.' When you give a task a one number like this the communication is very light.”

Once all of the robots have submitted bids the system acts as an auctioneer and picks the best robot for the task and assigns it. “So there's a bit of centralization, but it's not one entity that makes all the decisions,” Gini said. “Right now, the robots run a program that says to compute your cost you figure out where you are, how far you have to go, how much battery power you need, and that's how you submit the bid. In the long term we want the robots to learn how to do those things. But this is much farther away.” One of Gini's most recent studies looks at this challenge directly by examining methods of allocating tasks to robots in conditions where time and space are limited.

There is however debate as to whether distributed robotics is the best solution going forward for all applications. The International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems is currently working on a special issue on "Distributed Robotic Systems and Society” that aims to examine all sides of the issue. According the the journal, many of the characteristics that make distributed robotic systems ideal for certain emerging applications are also holding it back from being more widely adopted. “For instance, controlling the motion and behavior of large teams of robots still presents unique challenges for human operators, who cannot yet effectively convey their high-level intentions in application.” the journal said.

“Not everyone likes this idea [of distrubted robotics], there's debate in the scientific community, because you do lose something,” Gini said. “In a sense it's the same with humans if you have a team of people and you have a commander who is fully aware of the system and can decide what to do. Humans have failed at some local ability to understand, but if you send a person to a room and the room is locked the person is not going to sit there. A robot however will just sit there unless you've programmed it otherwise. In a distributed system robots may be stuck doing things nobody knows about.”

It sounds like the long-term ideal for distributed robotics then would be to implement AI sophisticated enough that it can adapt even to unforeseen circumstances – essentially having robots able to program themselves. Gini agrees, though she said that this notion is far off at this point. However, she said that as distributed robots are applied to more complex tasks the algorithms and AI behind them will also grow in complexity.

“Right now the areas where these things are looking to be used are warehouses such as Amazon's distribution centers – though Amazon uses a centralized system. Hospitals can use robots to move medicines, supplies, and food around and they're also trying to automate as much as possible so that they don't need a centralized system. “

Someday however distributed robotics could be seen outside of the manufacturing and could one day pop up in our smart cities and become a key technology in the widespread use of autonomous vehicles. “Vehicle routing problems are another big application,” Gini said. “If you think about the logistics of trucks, for example. How is this done? It can be done centrally but imagine a system where each truck diver gets a list that says, 'These are the things we need to ship around. How much will it cost you?' and the driver submits a bid.”

Now imagine those trucks are automated and you can start to envision how it would work. “Technically, in general you are not guaranteed to find an optimal solution,” Gini said. “But a more robust system can be resilient when things break, when there's noise in the communication, or something else. With robots it's very critical because things never work the way you expect them to.”

Artificial Intelligence: What Will the Future Be? Intelligent systems and robots will one day help us with routine tasks, handle dangerous jobs, and keep us company. But they could also make decisions that violate our ethical principles, take control of our lives, and disrupt society. Join Maria Gini — accompanied by her AI-enabled humanoid robot — during her keynote address at ESC Minneapolis Nov. 8-9, 2017, and explore state-of-the-art intelligent systems and discuss future developments and challenges. Use the code SAVE15ESCMINN to save 15% when you register today!